


Floodwall

by OpheliaAlexiou



Category: Fuchsia Comics, Original Work
Genre: Airships, Attraction, Canon Relationship(s) - Freeform, Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Conflict of Interests, Conversations, Desire, Dropships, Fluctuating POV, Fluctuating Point of View, Gen, Humour, No Sex, No Smut, Other, POV Alternating, Relationship(s), Sorrow, Technology, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:36:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7800328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaAlexiou/pseuds/OpheliaAlexiou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the foreshadowing of a terrible earthquake in China, the American organizations of D.E.V.I.L. and D.E.M.O.N. launch a humanitarian effort to protect the Chinese populace from the disaster that was to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in my Fuchsia Comics universe. You can learn more about the Fuchsia Comics universe by visiting my gallery of character profiles and foundation information at opheliaalexiou.deviantart.com organized into a few distinct folders in my general gallery.

                It was another ordinary morning in the Lowell household, just past dawn as Hiromasa and Kasey Lowell in their apartment’s kitchen, enjoying their morning coffee as their son slept in the privacy of his room.

 

                _Sparkling water and attractive mountains, a large highland reservoir of clean, clear waters trapped behind a large dam that stood at one end. The sky was brilliant and blue, massive cumulus clouds rolled overhead, the scene was tranquil and still for a few short minutes. Then, there was a shiver in the ground, a quivering that slowly increased, worsened, until the entire landscape was shaking so violently the waters started to churn in response to the shaking of the earth. The shaking exerted pressure on the dam, worsening steadily until the dam started to buckle and fracture, shallow cracks racing across the surface with a loud sound unlike anything he’d ever heard in his life. Then the dam shattered and released a catastrophic surge of water that swept out of the reservoir into the lowlands beyond, across massive cities whose names surged into his brain._

**WUHAN. NANJING. SHANGHAI.**

_Water raced across the landscape, decimating all that laid ahead of it as it washed away civilization, striking with enough force that it damaged the foundations of the great megalopolitan skyscrapers. He watched as if from an extraordinary altitude as the water washed across the landscape, down the basin of a river that had thinned with the construction of the dam, toward the China Sea. He could sense the tremendous loss of life, even before the knowledge surged into his brain and forced intense clarity into his mind._

**9.98 RICHTER  
** **41 MILLION DEAD  
** **1.1 MILLION MISSING  
** **900,000 WOUNDED  
** **WUHAN DESTROYED  
** **NANJING DESTROYED  
** **SHANGHAI DESTROYED  
** **3 APRIL, 2022**

                Keiji woke as he sat bolt upright, beads of icy perspiration rolling slowly down his warm skin and his chest was heaving until he caught his breath, staring at the wall with irises of textured Caribbean green beneath a handsome mass of short, messy black hair. He pulled the covers and quickly pulled on a pair of thigh-length denim shorts, then moved hastily into the rest of the apartment to pick up the phone, propping himself up against the wall with his other hand. He didn’t like the idea of revealing to the broader world what he could do, especially since he possessed no sort of control over it, but this was too big to be overlooked. April was less than six weeks away, he had to warn someone.

                “Keiji? Are you all right?” asked his father, Hiromasa, as he saw his son stumble from his room to the phone, picking it off the cradle. “Has it happened again?”

                “Operator,” Keiji said into the phone as he nodded at his father’s inquiry, “Operator, connect me to the local DEVIL office.” A few minutes later, he rotated to put his back against the wall and hold himself up with his legs only. He waited for the voice on the other side of the phone line.

                “Hello, may I have your name and the reason for your call?”

                “Keiji Lowell; I have experienced an augury of a disaster in China. There will be an earthquake,” Keiji began.

                “Agents are being dispatched immediately to receive your information,” the woman on the other side of the line answered, and he took a breath and hung up the phone before proceeding into the bathroom to wash and to calm himself.

 

* * *

 

 

                Agent Preston Hall sat at his desk and took a deep breath as he looked down at the documents regarding his assignment, the monumental task of organizing the coalescence and airlift of a large number of individuals to China. Keiji Lowell was not the only one who’d reported the impending disaster, hundreds of precognitive Neo-Humans all around the country had called in warnings from mid-February to mid-March. As he reviewed the documents, he took stock of how many of the special law enforcement operatives in the eastern half of the country had agreed to travel to China for the mission.

                _Windwalker, Aquamarine, Iron Maiden, Larimar, Malachite, Maxixe, Garnet, Obsidian,_ he read the names, and then took note of an additional name, _Iolite? Oh, right, she’s the Canadian volunteer from Lake Island City. Let’s see, which western agents has DEMON gotten together…_

                He took a moment to leaf through pages before looking over the list of names of special law enforcers from the western section of the country D.E.M.O.N. was successfully organizing for Operation Floodwall.

                _Waterdancer, Amethyst, Jade, Kunzite, Tanzanite, Turquoise, Tourmaline, Peridot, and Axinite, so basically, all the western agents we were hoping for are definitely going to participate_ , he thought to himself, looking up as he heard the knob of his office door turning. As the door opened, one of his subordinates in the mission walked in with a new paper for him to review, another list of codenames and any information available about them.

                _Heliodor, Agate, Jasper, Morganite,_ he read names peripherally familiar to him from being criminals active in the eastern United States, volunteering to join Operation Floodwall’s humanitarian mission to save Chinese lives, and looked up at his subordinate.

                “Jazz, has DEMON sent anything about which offenders in their region have accepted the amnesty offer?”

                “Yes, DEMON reports that offenders Tide, Carnelian, Quartz, Emerald, Onyx, and Ruby, have accepted the nationwide offer of partial amnesty to them if they should come forward to assist in a vital humanitarian operation,” replied the yellow-haired, hazel-eyed Agent Jasmine Wallace, “I don’t suspect they know what exactly they’re in for.”

                He was surprised by how many had actually accepted the offer, even one of the nation’s water-manipulating criminals had come forward to use his abilities to combat the floodwaters that would soon be spilling out into western China. He was not surprised by the Chinese government’s response to their messages, however: they denied even the existence of Neo-Humans and forbad the agencies of D.E.V.I.L. and D.E.M.O.N. to enter the nation to preserve lives in three key cities.

                “Have we heard from the White House?”

                “Yes. Operation Floodwall is greenlighted.”

                _Guess we’re going in uninvited_ , Preston thought to himself, standing and moving to make the arrangements for the aerial transportation required to bring twenty-eight Neo-Humans and nearly four times that number of support agents across two cooperating agencies. It would require a minimum of six airships to transport that many, and would require security countermeasures to ensure they could enter the Chinese countryside east of the dam and ahead of the floodwaters, securely.


	2. Airship 3 -- Approach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events onboard Airship 3, from just before the launch to touchdown at the selected Alpha Site.

                The airships, perhaps more appropriately referred to as dropships, used by the DEVIL and DEMON agencies, had a sort of dark chrome gleam to them, sleek and aerodynamic, with curved wings and a broad belly. In accordance with the International Limited Stealth Agreement, commonly called ILSA, the vehicles were weaponless but outfitted with above-military-grade stealth mechanisms. These mechanisms rendered the vehicle utterly undetectable except to other vehicles possessing the same mechanisms, once a certain altitudinal threshold was achieved.

                “This is what we’re going in? How does it get off the ground?” asked Rhaxma Huszar, being more commonly known as Heliodor, a young woman of twenty-two with seal-brown skin with an eighteen-inch braid of straight, silky hair of a true-black colour. Her eyes, luminescent heliodor yellow, focused on the aircraft, looking for some manner in which the vehicle would achieve lift: it was aerodynamic, but that didn’t mean it could achieve the lift required for actually _flying_ anywhere.

                “Lift is achieved through the activation of contragravitational mechanisms within the vehicle, developed and extensively tested by the inventrix responsible. However, the stealth mechanisms are unusable until a certain altitude; the contragravitational mechanisms produce a voluminous characteristic resonance, and the engines are likewise not soundless,” answered a woman slightly younger, standing five inches shorter than Rhaxma’s six foot three inches but only five pounds lighter than Rhaxma’s two hundred pounds. Eyes of a brilliant blue-green and hair of true-black hue in a fourteen-inch ponytail accented the Hawaiian native’s attractive golden complexion, which was mostly concealed underneath sturdy armour of tropical blue, including a partial facemask. Rhaxma recognized her as Kailani Mahelona, who was more widely known by her law enforcement codename of _Waterdancer_.

                “Ah, Waterdancer, your reputation precedes you,” Rhaxma replied, attention remaining on the collection of five vehicles that would transport them to China, “so how fast do they go?”

                “Not fast enough for you to steal one and make a getaway in it, not stealthy enough for you to be able to use it to steal anything else, and not easy enough to operate for you to operate it by yourself it requires four people to run,” Kailani replied, and Rhaxma lifted a hand in objection.

                “Look. Yes, we are both Neo-Humans, and yes, I use my gifts for a very different purpose than you put your own powers to, but that doesn’t make me a butcher. There’re forty-some-odd-damn-million people whose lives are being threatened because their government’s run by dumbasses, and I’m not some psychotic bitch that’s going to just shrug and go, ‘not my problem.’ And for your information, I turned down the amnesty offer, I’m not here to get a free pass on stealing, I’m here because I’m not going to simply let tens of millions of people die,” Rhaxma answered, heatedly, and perhaps offended by the fact that she was being lumped-in with people who _were_ there primarily for the amnesty. At least a few of them were, and most of them had at least accepted the offer even while dismissing it as their primary reason for coming so much as feeling it was a nice way to thank them for their cooperation in a life-saving operation.

                “So how do you know so much about this thing anyway?”

                “Studied it when I learned it was how I was going to get to China in a hurry,” replied Kailani, “And it’ll do seven hundred fifty miles per hour. It’ll take approximately ten hours to reach the alpha site, including the ascent and descent, but we will be in the air the entire duration. The vehicle is solar powered, the contragravitational mechanisms allow ascent to an altitude of up to forty-two thousand feet, and the advanced paneling absorbs sufficient solar energies to heat the vessel interior.” As she spoke, the black-clad agents of D.E.V.I.L. and D.E.M.O.N. were in the process of stocking the aircraft as two others approached, one violet-haired with irises of a metallic plum colour, the other having hair and eyes of blue-violet.

                The former was slightly older than Rhaxma, looking approximately twenty-three years old with her hair in a fourteen-inch ponytail and clothed in amethyst-coloured armour similar to Waterdancer’s in composition, although it lacked the mask. Rhaxma recognized her as Amethyst, a woman of similar power to herself though different in terms of the colour of manifestation, amethystine to Rhaxma’s heliodor-yellow energies. The other, younger woman walking alongside Layla Miral, was a Canadian woman of whom Rhaxma similarly knew only by reputation: Enya Kirvan, an Irish-Canadian two years Rhaxma’s junior. Similar in hairstyle to Amethyst and Waterdancer both, but with hair of a blue-violet pigmentation that matched her armour and her powers, she had a look of pallor when compared to Layla’s excellent tan and Kailani’s natural Hawaiian complexion. Still, where Amethyst was five feet six inches and a hundred thirty pounds, Iolite was three inches taller and accordingly fifteen pounds heavier, though both were athletically well muscled for their size.

                “The four of us are slated for aircraft 3,” Iolite informed them as she approached, “our aircraft will also carry the subject known as Jasper.” As Enya spoke of the last Neo-Human on the manifest for aircraft three alongside twenty agents from D.E.V.I.L., a twenty-one-year-old man of Hispanic descent approached, wearing jasper-coloured armour made of a bulletproof polymer. Standing five feet ten inches and one hundred eighty pounds, the golden-skinned man was lean and fit, with two-inch strands of wavy hair in a similarly jasper-red colour, and chromatic irises of the same. A disarming smile as he paused, hands on his hips and armour glinting in the morning sunlight, one hand rose to brush across his hair.

                “Someone requested a sexy red behemoth?”

                “I don’t know if requested is really the correct word for it,” Iolite answered, “but, yes, you’re at the correct aircraft.” He deflated slightly as his charms failed to make the desired home run with the vaguely foreign beauty, but rolled his shoulders and made a gesture of surrendering acceptance with his eyebrows.

                “Oh, well, red’s not everybody’s colour, I guess,” he replied coolly, “I tend to do better with guys, anyway. It’ll be nice to ride with several beautiful women, all the same, though, even if none of you are particularly interested.”

                “Do you know who will be on the other aircraft?” asked Waterdancer, and Iolite nodded briefly.

                “Airship 1 will be carrying Quartz, Larimar, Maxixe, Malachite, Garnet, and Obsidian; airship 2 will conduct Jade, Kunzite, Emerald, Aquamarine, Windwalker, and the Iron Maiden. Aircraft four will transport Agate, Peridot, Tourmaline, Axinite, and Morganite,” Iolite answered, “Aircraft five will be transporting Tanzanite, Turquoise, Tide, Carnelian, Onyx, and Ruby, along with the remaining twenty support personnel from D.E.M.O.N.”

                “Ay, mami, I suddenly wish I could trade places with Emerald,” Jasper groaned dramatically, soliciting the gazes of his four companions, “What?”

                “Any particular _reason_ for that, or don’t we want to know?” asked Rhaxma, as Layla stood, staring silently at the airship that would be transporting them to their destination.

                “All those flawless, well-endowed beauties in one room,” Jasper rolled his shoulders and turned up his hands, as if to apologize for being a man, however atypical.

                “Ah, I see, that’s your personal favourite, is it?” teased Kailani, “I might almost be tempted to pull you into the aircraft’s maintenance shaft at some point during the flight.” She emphasized the word shaft, and Javier shivered a bit in response to her tone, her meaning, and her word choice.

                “Almost?” queried Javier in return, with feigned innocence.

                “I prefer my boys to be well-mannered and _upstanding_ ,” she replied with another double-entendre, smirking a bit as she turned and headed up the boarding ramp when it finally lowered in readiness.

                “I will take it under intense consideration,” Javier said to no one in particular before he cleared his throat and quickly hurried to board the third of six airships. As the airship powered up, the engines hummed loudly as the direct vertical ascent initiated, bringing the ship up until it reached the service ceiling.

                “Ascending to the service ceiling now,” the pilot said over the airship’s onboard intercom, “2,000 feet: stealth mechanism activated.” For a little less than sixty minutes, there was silence, which ended in a second announcement.

                “42,000 feet: acceleration initiated,” the pilot said over the airship’s onboard intercom, as the vehicle started to move forward, the airship formation reaching maximum velocity shortly leaving the continent behind and soaring over the Pacific.

                “You are awfully quiet, Layla. What’s going on?” asked Kailani, noting the silence of one of her companions.

                “My mother was diagnosed with Marrison’s Lymphoma,” Layla said as she stared at a ball of amethystine luminescence in her hand, rolling it between her fingers somberly.

                “I am sorry. The pharmaceutical companies will be held accountable, but I know that’s no consolation at all,” Iolite offered sympathetically, “Do you know how long she has?”

                “About three weeks, approximately,” she replied; her voice was low and her tone solemn.

                “What’s Marrison’s Lymphoma?” asked Rhaxma, both sincerely interested and genuinely clueless.

                “It is a newly discovered super-strain of cancerous disease, a mutated form of cancer caused by the unethical business practices of pharmaceutical companies and their lack of dedication to the alleviation of human suffering in favour of the idolatry of their own avarice,” replied Kailani, her voice respectfully quiet.

                “That’s messed up,” Jasper opined, “So there’s no reason for her mother’s … imminent passing. That’s just not right. I should start stealing from pharmaceutical companies.”

                “That wasn’t really the point of the conversation,” Enya interjected softly.

                “I meant so that I could inflict injury upon the kind of business practice that causes this sort of thing to occur,” Javier clarified, “I wouldn’t actually keep the money if I hit a pharmaceutical company, I would anonymously donate it to… well, someone like Elizabeth Amelia Bonham, someone that could organize a medical research group and fund it. I do have a moral compass, you know.”

                “Thank you for the sentiment, Jasper,” Amethyst said softly as she continued to stare at the orb of light rolling between her slender, well-tanned fingers, “I know you have gentle intentions for what you say. I also know you have never killed anyone.”

                For a long while thereafter, there was silence as they soared at remarkable speed over the Pacific, lost in their reflections on the impending bereavement of one member of their impromptu company. Despite the deep differences that divided them, it was clear, to Kailani at least, that both Heliodor and Jasper felt the pull of authentic empathy for the violet-haired twenty-three-year-old and her present circumstances.

                Finally, about an hour and a half after they had passed Hawaii, one young man clad in the black uniform of an agent of D.E.V.I.L. turned his attention from the man sitting beside him to the small group of enhanced.

                “So, Iolite, I have been wondering something, if you don’t mind my asking,” he said.

                “What is that, Agent Thomas?” Iolite replied as she looked at the name on his uniform jacket.

                “You may call me Clark. My husband and I were curious: does BEAR not have airships like these?”

                “BEAR does have airships, but felt it would be a waste of resources to send an airship to transport one single Neo-Human. I received special leave to come to the United States to join in the efforts of our continental neighbours, as the only member of BEAR possessing abilities of a sort that would be helpful,” she replied, “You and Agent Hall are married?”

                “Yes. Kent and I met in high school and began dating, and DEVIL has no rules barring agent fraternization,” Clark answered.

                “Even if they did, fraternization regulations typically pertain to new relations between previously unfamiliar persons, and inherently exclude preexistent unions,” Kent added, “DEVIL and our brother-agency of DEMON have a more enlightened view of the matter. Agents can always be reassigned to different offices or different states if any particular relationship fails to work out, to prevent it from interfering with operational consistency.”

                “Our particular assignment is to provide support to stronger-empowered Neo-Humans with the applications of our own individual abilities,” Clark continued.

                “You two are Neo-Human, also?”

                “Yes,” Clark answered, “I empower and teleport, Kent heals any physical injury not life-threateningly severe, though with my support he can even mend wounds which would be otherwise fatal.”

                “Good to have you both along, then,” Enya answered with a nod of appreciation as they were approaching their destination and beginning to descend, still cloaked in the stealth mechanism.


End file.
